Which English football champions had the longest pre-season odds?

“Arsenal were 40-1 to win the Premier League at the start of the season,” notes Alex Norton. “In betting terms, who apart from Leicester are the most unlikely English champions?”

After enjoying a weekend away in the newspaper archive, we found – with one frustrating exception – pre-season odds for all champions of England since the mid-1960s. None come anywhere near Leicester’s 5,000-1 miracle in 2015-16. In fact, in the Premier League era, Leicester are the only team to win the title with odds in double figures, never mind quadruple.

The next most unlikely winners, according to the bookies, were Manchester United in 2006-07. After three years without a league title, they were 13-2 to usurp José Mourinho’s rampant Chelsea. Many people thought Sir Alex Ferguson was finished. They were truly, madly, deeply wrong: he won the league in five of his remaining seven seasons at Old Trafford.

Other relative outsiders include Chelsea (5-1 when they won it under Antonio Conte in 2016-17), Arsenal (9-2 in both 1997-98 and 2001-02), Manchester City (9-2 in 2011-12), Blackburn (4-1 in 1994-95), and Manchester United again (4-1 in 1992-93).

The Premier League has become a bit of a closed shop, which made Leicester’s title win all the more remarkable. But football was more democratic in the days of the old Division One, when a number of teams won the league with pre-season odds in excess of 10-1. First up, Howard Wilkinson’s Leeds were 12-1 in 1991-92. It was only their second season back in the top flight and, though they had impressed in finishing fourth the previous year, almost everyone thought it was too soon for them to challenge for the title.

Howard Kendall’s emerging Everton were 14-1 before they romped thrillingly to the title